Roundtable Recap: September 16 – 5 Cloud Computing Opportunities for Entrepreneurs

At today’s roundtable, I started with a presentation on Blue Sky opportunities in Cloud Computing based on our Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing (TLCC) research. I took the audience through five cloud-based business ideas, and discussed why they are relevant, and pointed them to the sources I derived those ideas from.

For you, readers, here they are:

1. Cloud-based collaboration among bio-medical researchers around large volumes of data:

Dr. Marcos Athanasoulis, CTO of Harvard Medical School discussed this idea with me recently. There is a tremendous amount of data sitting at various pockets that bio-medical researchers are trying to collaborate around. The data needs modeling, processing, visualization, etc. – all activities in the domain of computer science, not bio-medical sciences. There is also need for researchers at various institutes to collaborate around this data and models, all problems that point towards a cloud based solution. An entrepreneur should pick this one up ASAP. From cancer research to genomics, wide arrays of research areas are looking forward to your innovation.

2. Cloud-based legal records management, digitization, archival, retrieval

Michael Aginsky, CTO of Gibbons P.C. pointed me to the vast masses of paper archives sitting at law firms, waiting to be digitized, and archived in meaningful ways along with efficient retrieval capabilities. Law firms are looking for cloud solutions that include security, disaster recovery, and other goodies.

3. Charge-back accounting solution for large enterprises deploying cloud technologies

Ric Telford, Vice President of Cloud Services, IBM pointed me to the rather significant move towards rolling out private clouds at large enterprises, a move that IBM is spearheading by providing full stacks of infrastructure technologies. Now, let us say you are an enterprise that has rolled out a rather extensive private cloud, and all your divisions and business units are using it freely. How do you keep track of who is using how much of the resources? How do you account for the charge backs to the business units or functional areas? This is an open opportunity for an entrepreneur to build a custom solution.

4. Cloud-based flexible pricing solution for telecom vendors 

Jim Dunlap, CIO of Alaska Telecom discussed with me the increasingly serious problem that telecom vendors are facing due to bandwidth consumption skyrocketing. Today, the Telecom industry charges based on fixed price business models for data services. But to keep up with the rate at which bandwidth consumption is scaling, telecom vendors almost certainly will need to adopt a variable pricing model, such that they can charge based on consumption, just as they charge for voice services. The Utility industry charges based on how much energy or water is consumed, but the Telecom industry assumes unlimited data usage for a fixed fee. Jim’s interview with me (coming shortly) sheds light on why this will change, and how the infrastructure needs to adapt.

5. Cloud integration services around specific vendors

José Almandoz, CIO of Novell and several others have brought up how complex the integration issues are around the cloud. With 600-800 vendors with their own specific integration requirements, there is a plethora of opportunities to build integration services companies around specific vendors or specific domains. Appirio is one such company that jumped on this trend way back in 2007 and has now built a significant company in that space, and Sequoia has financed them. In fact, using their expertise, they have also successfully productized various connectors and adapters to build unique value.

Anyway, those are just a few blue sky ideas for you to go after. There will be others as you dig deeper!

As for today’s pitches, first up was Ambal Ramachandran with SurgeForth, a talent management SaaS company that we first saw last November. SurgeForth has since graduated to paying customers, and is making good progress. We discussed a variety of product strategy issues, including where to focus and how to avoid spray and pray.

Then Zubair Ansari with CionSystems pitched a new IT provisioning and de-provisioning system that specifically aims to handle the exponentially enhanced complexity of cloud adoption. Cion has 18 customers and is considering funding. I pointed Zubair to a couple of case studies of bootstrapping using services to get more of his core product built, and in parallel, I will help him pursue institutional funding.

Next, Rajeev Pareek discussed his Rural BPO idea. Rajeev wants to build a BPO firm in a place called Bolpur in West Bengal, India. Bolpur is home to the Viswabharati university, as well as several other small engineering and professional colleges. Rajeev came with a list of commodity services like transcription, digitization, etc. But as I found out that Rajeev is a computer engineer, I suggested to him to build a cost-effective SEO services firm, which would be more interesting. I have a variety of contacts for Rajiv to get his business off the ground. Bolpur Shantiniketan is close to my heart (we have a house there), and in my opinion is a splendid rural BPO location.

Next week, we will delve once again into e-commerce businesses and explore how niche e-commerce is transitioning into Web 3.0.

I started doing my free Online Strategy Roundtables for entrepreneurs in the fall of 2008. These roundtables are the cornerstone programming of a global initiative that I have started called One Million by One Million (1M/1M). Its mission is to help a million entrepreneurs globally to reach $1 million in revenue and beyond, build $1 trillion in sustainable global GDP, and create 10 million jobs. In 1M/1M, I teach the EJ methodology, which is based on my Entrepreneur Journeys research, and emphasize bootstrapping, idea validation, and crisp positioning as some of the core principles of building strong fundamentals in early stage ventures. In addition, we are offering entrepreneurs access to investors and customers through our 1M/1M Incubation Radar series. You can pitch to be featured on my blog following these instructions. All three of today’s roundtable companies will soon be featured on Incubation Radar.

Recordings of previous roundtables are all available here. You can register for the next roundtable here.

This segment is a part in the series : Roundtable Recap
. March 25 – A Mixed Bag Of Advice . April 1 – Bootstrapping Tips . April 8 – A Focus On E-Commerce . April 15 – Small Is OK; The Goal Is Profitability . April 22 – The Original Runners . April 29 – Finding The Right Direction . May 6 – Defining Value Proposition . May 20 – Validation, Validation, Validation . May 27 – Is The Venture Worth Your Time? . June 3 – Defining Market Segments . June 10 – Efficient Targeting . June 17 – Online Education Startups . June 24 – Three Startups That Can Hit One Million Dollars . July 1 - Get Your Pricing Model Validated . July 8 - The EJ Methodology . July 15 - A Market Of Late Adopters . July 22 - Bootstrap Using Services . July 29 - Startups In Malaysia . August 5 - Paying Customers =>Validation =>Valuation . August 19 - Niche E-Commerce Is Great For Bootstrapping . August 26 - 85%-90% Of Search Traffic Comes From Organic Search . September 2 - Find High Velocity Channels . September 9 - Open Opportunities In Cloud Computing And Rural BPO . September 16 – 5 Cloud Computing Opportunities for Entrepreneurs . September 23 - Do Not Spray And Pray . September 30 - Investors Don't Fund Broad Ideas . October 7 - Try To Get At Least $2M Pre-Money In Seed Round Valuation . October 14 - Professional Investors Do Not Invest In $20 Million Markets . October 21 - Bootstrapping Comes In Many Flavors . October 28 – Convert Potential Competitors To Partners . November 4 - Premium Lounge Sneak Preview . November 11 - African Tech Entrepreneurs Emerging . November 18 - Not Coming To The Rescue Of Victory . December 2 - Niche Marketplace Businesses Can Be Interesting . December 9 - Where Should You Raise Money? . December 16 - Top 10 Tech Trends To Watch . January 6 - Top 10 Vertical and Social Web Trends For The Decade . January 13 - Top 10 Online Advertising Trends For The Decade . January 20 - Personalization Remains An Open Problem . January 27 - Non-Dilutive Financing Through Revenue Sharing . February 3 - Indian Entrepreneurs Are Maturing . February 10 - When Keywords Are Competitive . February 17 - Indian Company Plugs Gap In Google’s Enterprise Solution . February 24 - VCs, Angels, Incubators, Accelerators – What Are You Doing With Your Rejects? . March 3 - Spotlight On The Northwest . March 10 - Spotlight On India . March 17 - Spotlight On Latin And Central America . March 24 - 75th Session Spotlights The Midwest . March 31 - Microsoft’s $100,000 India Startup Challenge Grant . April 6 - 1M/1M Announces Important Partnership With MAD Incubator, Malaysia . April 9 - 1M/1M Announces Partnership With TiE Chennai . April 16 - 1M/1M Partners With Indian Angel Network Incubator . April 17 - High-Octane Energy In Pune . April 21- Incubators Are Reaching Out To 1M/1M . April 28 - Guerrilla P.R. & SEO Most Profitable Customer Acquisition Strategies . May 5 - Ownership Matters . May 12 - Two Really Cool Companies . May 19, Making Money From Blogs . May 26 - Twitter, LinkedIn - Why Not Affiliates? . June 2 - 1M/1M And Incubators - What We Have Learned . June 9 - Silicon Valley . June 16 - Exciting Companies Lined Up For Microsoft Startup Grant Finals . June 23 - New Assessment Tool For Entrepreneurs . June 30 - Continued International Participation . July 21 - Crowd Sourced Funding Exchanges - An Emerging Trend . July 28 - Investors And Incubators Need To Look At Pre-Incubation . August 4 - How Do You Bootstrap Freemium Ventures? . August 11 - Menlo Park And The Silicon Valley Renaissance . August 25 - How To Use Twitter For Lead Generation . September 1 - Fall Call To Action . September 8 - A View Into Israeli Start-ups . September 15 - Do Your Homework First . September 22 - How Do You Catalyze A Region’s Entrepreneurship? . September 29 - From Poland To Argentina . October 6 - Dedicated To Steve Jobs, Reinforcing Mission To Restructure Capitalism . October 13 - FREE Is Not A Business Model . October 20 - Non-profits And For-profits . October 27 - Check Out Stanzr . November 3 - VCs Are Not Always Right . November 17 - Business Schools And Early Stage Entrepreneurship . December 1 - 1M/1M Premium Company Freshdesk Wins Funding From Accel Partners . December 8 - Three Open Opportunities For 2012 . December 15 - Web 3.0 And Social Dancing; Romania Emerging . December 22 - Free Apps, Ad-Supported Business Models => Dangerous! . January 5 - ERP Galore . January 12-13 - Spotlight On IIT Kharagpur, India . January 19 - Are Media Sites Fundable? . January 26th - Spotlight On Jacksonville, Florida . February 2 - YCombinator vs. 1M/1M . February 9 - Are You Fundable? . February 16 - What’s Happening In Turkey? . February 23 - Microsoft Israel To Offer 1M/1M Scholarships . March 1 - Strategy Gaps Need To Be Plugged . March 12 - Winners Of Microsoft Israel Scholarships . March 15 - Spotlight On 3 Day Startup Tel-Aviv . April 3 - Rendezvous In Bangalore . April 12 - More From Indian Entrepreneurs . April 19 - Tyranny Of The TAM . April 26 - A Rare Women-Only Session . May 3 - Some Wonderful Opportunities With Corporate Partners . May 10 - BlueSnap-Elance Contest Applications Deadline This Weekend . May 22 - Winners Of TechHub-A&N Media Battle Of The Startups Contest In London Win 1M/1M Scholarships